tohar

• Reaches outside worship altogether to mean plain brightness. It describes how the sky under God's feet looked, and it is a king's shine that God is said to put an end to.Exo 24:10Psa 89:44
• Within the law it belongs to one situation only, a mother after childbirth, where it names the stretch of time she waits through and the blood of that stretch. It is a condition she remains in rather than a procedure carried out on her.Lev 12:4Lev 12:5

• Both close a period of being unfit the same way, with an offering brought to the priest at the tent of meeting once the counted days are complete.Lev 12:6Lev 14:23
• Both settle when a person may come near the sanctuary again, so each is about standing before God rather than about being dirty or clean in the ordinary sense.Lev 12:4Lev 15:13

• Names the prescribed course that brings a person back to clean standing, pinned to a set day and filled with required acts: counted days, washing in fresh water, shaving, and an offering handled by a priest.Lev 14:2Lev 15:13Ezk 44:26
• Covers the impurities that come from a skin disease, from a bodily discharge, and from a death close at hand, none of which the other word is ever used for.Lev 13:7Lev 15:13Num 6:9
• Turns outward to name the standard that holy things and holy service are held to, something temple staff keep watch over rather than something a single person passes through.1Ch 23:282Ch 30:19Neh 12:45

• Names the abstract state or set period of purity itself, most often the days of a mother's purifying after childbirth.Lev 12:4Lev 12:6
• Extends to a shining clearness, the cloudless brightness of the sky under God's feet.Exo 24:10

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• Describes a thing, animal, or person as clean or pure: it is the quality applied to something, marking it fit for use or for God's presence.Gen 7:2Lev 13:17
• Names gold of the highest, unalloyed grade, the pure gold of the tabernacle furnishings.Exo 25:11Exo 37:2

• Names a measured stretch of time, the days a mother waits through after childbirth, along with the blood of that stretch. It is a condition she stays in for a counted number of days, not an act performed on her.Lev 12:4Lev 12:5
• Names visible brightness as something a thing or a person has, and can lose: the pavement under God's feet looked like the clear sky, and a king's shine is what God is said to bring to an end.Exo 24:10Psa 89:44

• Both work inside the one law for a mother after childbirth in Leviticus 12, from opposite ends: one word names the waiting period she passes through, the other the moment she is clean once the offering has been made for her.Lev 12:4Lev 12:6Lev 12:7Lev 12:8
• Both settle a person's standing before God rather than describing ordinary dirt: whether she may touch what is holy or enter the sanctuary, and whether he may eat the holy food again.Lev 12:4Lev 22:7

• Carries the priest's spoken verdict. After looking a skin condition over, or examining a stained garment, the priest declares the person or the cloth clean, which is a judgment made about them rather than a condition they simply have.Lev 13:6Lev 13:23Lev 13:59
• Names something actually done, with water, fire, blood, or a rite doing the work: washing seven times in the Jordan, blood put on the altar to make it clean, metal passed through fire, and a land cleared of the dead.2Ki 5:10Lev 16:19Num 31:23Ezk 39:12
• Reaches past the worship rules into being cleansed of sin and guilt, where God washes a people clean of what they have done and no one can claim to have made their own heart clean.Psa 51:2Pro 20:9Jer 33:8Ezk 36:25

• It has a whole second use with nothing to do with worship: the clear, see-through brightness of something with no cloud over it. What Israel's leaders saw under God's feet looked like the body of the sky in its clearness, and a psalm says God made a king's shine stop and threw his throne to the ground. The other word never describes how anything looks.Exo 24:10Psa 89:44
• In worship it names the good side of the pair, the standing a person is moving toward, so the counted days are named for where they end rather than for the trouble they start from. A mother sits out her days of clean standing, kept from holy things until they are complete, and when they are complete she brings her lamb and her bird to the priest. Nothing is ever washed off or driven out with this word.Lev 12:4Lev 12:6

• Both name a condition as a thing in itself, something a person is in or has on them, and both are measured by the same test: whether that person may come near what is holy. A mother in her days of clean standing may not touch anything holy or enter the sanctuary until they are done, and anyone who comes near the holy gifts with uncleanness on him is cut off.Lev 12:4Lev 22:3Lev 15:31
• Both are counted out in days tied to a flow of blood, and both hold until the days run out. A woman who bears a daughter sits sixty six days in the blood of her clean standing, and a woman with a long flow is in that state for all the days of it, as in her monthly time.Lev 12:5Lev 15:25
• Both are closed out at the sanctuary door by a priest and an offering, not by time alone. When the days are complete she brings a lamb for a burnt offering and a bird for a sin offering to the priest, and for the woman with a flow the priest offers one bird each way and covers her before God because of it.Lev 12:6Lev 15:30Lev 14:19

• It reaches past the body into wrongdoing and shame. A wife suspected of going aside is asked under oath whether she has taken this on herself, God tells Israel he dealt with them according to it and their rebellion, Ezra calls the land full of it because of the detestable practices in it, and God promises to sweep away even the spirit named after it. The other word has no matching moral use.Num 5:19Ezk 39:24Ezr 9:11Zec 13:2
• It sticks to places, things, and food, not just to people. It defiles God's dwelling where he lives among his people, the holy place itself has to be put right because of it, priests carried it out of the temple and dumped it in the valley, it is boiled out of a corroded pot, and Samson's mother is told not to eat anything that counts as it.Lev 15:31Lev 16:162Ch 29:16Ezk 24:11Jdg 13:7
• It is the thing that has to come off. God sprinkles clean water and cleanses his people from all of it, he says he will spend it out of a scattered city, blood is put on the altar to clear it of what the people brought, and a person still carrying it after touching a dead body stays in that state until it is dealt with.Ezk 36:25Ezk 22:15Lev 16:19Num 19:13

• Carries the language of ritual cleanness, which the brightness word never touches: after giving birth a mother stays in the blood of her cleanness, and she may not go to the sanctuary until the days of her cleanness are finished.Lev 12:4Lev 12:5
• Names a condition that days can be counted in. Thirty-three days follow the birth of a son and twice that many a daughter, and the mother brings her lamb and her bird to the priest only when that counted span is filled.Lev 12:4Lev 12:5Lev 12:6
• Describes clearness as a quality a thing has rather than a glow it throws off: the pavement under God's feet is like the very heavens for clearness, with nothing at all standing in the way of the light.Exo 24:10
• Can be something a person loses. Read as the text stands, the psalm says God has put an end to the king's shine and thrown his throne to the ground, so this word can name a splendor taken away.Psa 89:44

• Both reach for the sky as the measure of brightness: the wise will shine like the brightness of the open sky, and the pavement under God's feet is like the very heavens for clearness.Dan 12:3Exo 24:10
• Both can name the visible splendor of an impressive figure: the glow of the one Ezekiel sees in his vision, and the king's shine that the psalm says God brought to an end.Ezk 8:2Psa 89:44

• Names light that something gives off, a glow reported by someone watching it: from the waist up, the figure Ezekiel sees looks like brightness, with the color of gleaming metal.Ezk 8:2
• Turns up in a promise about people, as the radiance they will one day have: the wise will shine like the brightness of the open sky, set beside stars that go on forever.Dan 12:3
• Stays a word about light and nothing else. Both of its places describe something seen, and it never reaches into cleanness, worship, or being fit to come near God.Ezk 8:2Dan 12:3